Strategy vs Tactics

Understanding Marketing Strategy

Far too many new age marketers misuse the term strategy when they refer to tactics, or use the terms interchangeably as if it were the same. They will talk about website strategy, email strategy, Facebook strategy and so on, when these are really marketing tactics that should support the strategy. The real issue is not so much that they are using the wrong term, but that they actually forget that there needs to be a strategy before the tactics, and not surprisingly, marketing efforts tend to be random and disconnected from one another, which leads to poor results.

The difference between strategy and tactics

Strategy and tactics refer to two separate and distinct business functions. Essentially, strategy involves planning a business next move, and tactics involve the actions to carry out the plan.

Strategy is the plan based on your business overarching goals and objectives, and the direction you want to take your business in. It requires an understanding of trends in your industry, your competitive position in the marketplace, as well as the characteristics of your ideal client and their buying cycles.

Tactics are the different systems you will put in place to fulfill your plan. Advertising, email, web optimization and social media are all parts of your tactical plan, and they work towards the same objective. For example, sending a monthly newsletter to your subscribers, adding signup forms to carefully designed landing pages, and creating offers that require people to opt-in are tactics that together will contribute toward your objective of getting more leads.

Strategy is the master plan, tactics are the actions to take to implement it.

The place to start is with your business goals, and there is enough written about the importance of setting goals, so I will not get into that too deeply at this point, but you should!